Hotel proposed for West Manchester Township

A Lancaster-based family business is considering building a hotel in West Manchester Township.

The hotel could be built at 1405 Kenneth Road, the former site of Emperors Chinese Food and Sushi Restaurant, said Shahker Patel, member of the family doing business as Shree Jogikrupa LLC.

The Patel family currently is a minority partner in the Econo Lodge hotel at 222 Arsenal Road in Manchester Township, Shahker Patel said.

For the West Manchester Township site, the family wants to build an 80-room hotel that could be either three or four stories, depending on design plans, he said.

"We want it to be an extended-stay brand," Shahker Patel said. "We're looking at several brands, so there's no official hotel name yet. We just started planning for the hotel in November, December. If things work out, we're looking into next year for starting the hotel."

Zoning: Because plans for the hotel's height might be in violation of West Manchester's highway commercial zoning requirements, the Patel family recently asked the township's zoning hearing board to allow it to build the structure up to 45 feet tall.

The ordinance allows only a 35-foot maximum height for properties within the highway commercial zone.

The zoning hearing board agreed to the variance on Tuesday.

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The board also waived certain landscape requirements for the family, which was represented by consulting engineer Jim Sanchez, owner of Sanchez & Associates in Millersville, Lancaster County.

Variances granted: West Manchester Township's ordinance requires that a 10-foot-wide landscape strip — of grass, mulch, trees or shrubs — be placed along the property lines. However, the board allowed that amount to be reduced to two feet, based on how the property exists today, said Monica Love, the township's zoning officer.

The family also asked for a variance from an ordinance regulating parking lot distance from the Route 30 right-of-way.

Love said the property's parking lot was set up close to the right-of-way when the site was developed in the 1980s.

Today, parking lots are required to be at least 15 feet from the right-of-way. The former Emperors lot is 7 feet away, Love said.

"(The Patel family's) request was to leave it that way, and it was granted," she said.